from Sa‘d ibn Abī Waqqās, Ibn Mas‘ūd, Hudhayfa, ‘Ammār, Abū Mūsā, and others whom Umar had sent to Kūfa.
The people of Basra learned the religion from Imrān ibn Husayn, Abū Bakra, Abd al-Rahmān ibn Samura, Anas, and other Companions.
The people of Syria learned the religion from Mu‘ādh ibn Jabal, Ubāda ibn al-Sāmit, Abū al-Dardā’, Bilāl, and other Companions.
The worshippers and ascetics in these regions learned the religion from the Companions whom they met. How, then, can it be said that the path of the ascetics and Sufis can be traced back solely to him, to the exclusion of everyone else?
Consider the works on asceticism, such as al-Zuhd (Asceticism) by Imam Ahmad, and works of the same title by Ibn al-Mubārak, Wakī‘ ibn al-Jarrāh, and Hannād ibn al-Sarī, as well as collections of reports about ascetics, such as Hilyat al-Awliyā’ (The Adornment of the Saints), Safwat al-Safwa (The Choicest of the Elect), and others. They contain many accounts of the Companions and the Followers, and the material they contain about Alī is no more extensive than what they contain about Abū Bakr, Umar, Mu‘ādh, Ibn Mas‘ūd, Ubayy ibn Ka‘b, Abū Dharr, Abū al-Dardā’, Abū Umāma, and their peers among the Companions—may Allah be pleased with them all.
[Section on the Rāfidī’s Claim That Alī Is the Source of the Art of Eloquence, and the Response to It]
(Chapter)
The Rāfidī (1) said: “As for the art of eloquence, he is its fountainhead, so much so that